Visa and FireEye collaborate to defend merchants of all sizes against attacks

FireEye and Visa join forces to minimise the impact of cyber attacks against merchants of all sizes.

Payments giant Visa has joined forces with FireEye to co-develop tools that will protect merchants of all sizes against attacks on consumer payment data.

The companies plan to offer tools that will provide greater cyber intelligence and enhanced threat monitoring and will continue to work together, along with FireEye’s cyber forensics group Mandiant, to add more capabilities tailored to issuers and merchants of all sizes.

“The threat environment for merchants is more hostile than we’ve ever seen – attack groups focused exclusively on stealing consumer data are continuously expanding their operations and employing new techniques,” said David DeWalt, CEO of FireEye.

“It’s a daunting prospect for any merchant whose business could collapse if they lose customer trust.

“This new collaboration brings together two industry leaders to help protect merchants and payment data and minimise the impact of attacks by sharing information.”

Identifying threats early means fewer stolen accounts

Enhanced monitoring of malicious attacks and suspicious payment activity will help in alerting merchants of potential compromises.

“Although we are leading efforts to render stolen data useless through smart technologies, data security remains foundational for merchants. We’re pleased to be working closely with FireEye, which has been at the front lines identifying and investigating some of the most significant compromises around the world, to provide critical cyber intelligence to merchants and financial institutions.”

In related news, security and systems management start-up Tanium has hired David Damato, a former managing director at FireEye, as its first chief security officer.

Damato led FireEye’s investigation into the hacking attack earlier this year on Anthem Health.

Tanium is a fast-growing start-up backed by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz that focuses on managing large-scale networks and their various endpoints.